A Ballot-Level Study of Intentional and Unintentional Abstention in Presidential Election Voting

选举的剩余投票率是指在选举中投出的不包含有效选票的选票的比例，在当代关于未统计选票、选民被剥夺选举权和选举改革的文献中，剩余投票率被认为是衡量选举管理的晴雨表。尽管如此，剩余投票率的一个限制是，它们聚集了许多类型的无效选票。选民失误、投票机问题和故意弃权都会产生剩余选票，就影响选举的总体剩余投票率而言，这些剩余选票在观察上是相等的。这是有问题的，因为研究与技术相关的剩余选票的研究人员和那些关注少数族裔选民被剥夺选举权的研究人员更关心无意剩余选票，而不是故意剩余选票。该项目将剩余投票率分解为无意和故意两种比率。这需要生成和编码一组选票图像。相比之下，没有总统选票但包括所有其他竞争对手的有效选票的大选选票，与试图投票选举包括总统在内的所有职位的选票形成对比。前一张选票可能包含有意的总统剩余选票，而后者则是无意的剩余选票。区分这些不投票--即区分选民错误、技术和弃权票造成的剩余选票--需要选票图像。由于2000年大选后佛罗里达州进行了重新计票，佛罗里达州档案馆现在保存了该州在这次竞选期间投出的所有选票。在美国各地，没有类似的选票档案。佛罗里达州档案馆的选票由按选区分类的纸张组成，选票没有任何意义上的编码。因此，研究项目的第一步是制作佛罗里达州一组有代表性的县的选票的电子图像，然后对图像进行编码。对于这样考虑的每个县，将对其所有具有无效总统选票的选票以及随机选择的具有有效总统选票的一组选票进行图像处理。该项目的第二步是应用病例对照统计技术来估计有意剩余票率、无意剩余票率和与技术限制有关的剩余票率。该项目最后将选票图像和相关编码公布在互联网网站上，以帮助选举改革、投票违规和选举参与的学者。这将在未计票的选票上产生前所未有的资源，研究选票分裂的研究人员也会感兴趣。分裂是指在同一选举中，个人投票给一个政党的总统候选人和另一个政党的国会候选人时发生的现象。分票率是无法观察到的，只能通过选票图像可靠地估计。选举影响着社会中的群体在政府中代表其利益的程度，但剩余投票率高的群体获得的代表比低得票率的群体少。这是民权学者的担忧，因为有令人信服的证据表明，相对于白人选民，少数族裔选民的剩余投票率很高。更多地了解剩余选票的来源，以及它们通常是无意的还是故意的，将有助于学者和选举改革实践者确保社会上的所有群体都能从选举中得到良好的服务。最后，该项目说明了选票水平分析的重要性，并可能鼓励在佛罗里达州以外的地方建立选票档案。这类档案可以极大地提高对剩余选票的学术理解，因此该项目展示了让选票供研究使用将如何增强美国选举的合法性。

An election's residual vote rate is the fraction of ballots cast in it that do not contain valid votes, and within contemporary literatures on uncounted votes, voter disfranchisement, and electoral reform residual vote rates are considered the barometer by which election administration is measured. Nonetheless, a limitation of residual vote rates is that they aggregate many types of invalid votes. Voter errors, voting machine problems, and intentional abstention all produce residual votes that are observationally equivalent insofar as affecting an election's overall residual vote rate. This is problematic as researchers studying technology-related residual votes and those focusing on minority voter disfranchisement care more about unintentional residual votes than they do about intentional residual votes, i.e., deliberate abstention.The project disaggregates residual vote rates into, among other rates, unintentional and intentional rates. This requires generating and coding a set of ballot images. Contrast a general election ballot that has no vote for president yet includes valid votes in all other contested races with a ballot that has attempted votes for all offices including president. The former ballot presumably contains an intentional presidential residual vote while the latter, an unintentional residual vote. Distinguishing between these nonvotes-that is, distinguishing between residual votes caused by voter error, technology, and abstention-requires ballot images. On account of the recount that took place in Florida following the 2000 general election, the Florida State Archive now houses all the ballots cast in the state during this contest. Across the United States there are no comparable ballot archives. The ballots in the Florida archive consist of sheets of paper sorted by precinct, and the ballots are not coded in any sense. Thus, the first step of the research project is making electronic images of the ballots from a set of representative Florida counties and then coding the images. For each county so considered images will be made of all its ballots that have invalid presidential votes and also of a randomly selected set of ballots that have valid presidential votes. The second step of the project is applying case control statistical techniques to estimate intentional residual vote rates, unintentional residual votes, and residual vote rates associated with technology limitations.The project concludes by publishing its ballot images and associated codings on an Internet site so as to benefit scholars of election reform, voting irregularities, and electoral participation. This will generate an unprecedented resource on uncounted votes that will also be of interest to researchers who study ticket splitting-a phenomenon that occurs when individuals vote for a presidential candidate of one party and a Congressional candidate of another in the same election. Ticket splitting rates are unobservable and can only be estimated reliably with ballot images. Elections influence the extent to which groups in society have their interests represented in government, yet groups with high residual vote rates receive less representation than groups with low rates. This is a concern for civil rights scholars as there is compelling evidence that minority voters have high residual vote rates relative to white voters. Knowing more about the origins of residual votes and whether they are in general unintentional or intentional will help academics and election reform practitioners ensure that all groups in society are well-served by elections. Finally, the project illustrates the importance of ballot-level analyses and may encourage the creation of ballot archives beyond Florida's. Such archives can vastly improve the scholarly understanding of residual votes, and as such the project shows how making ballots accessible for research will strengthen the legitimacy afforded to American elections.